New Chairman for Education and Labor

Minnesota Congressman John Kline was chosen on December 8th by the House Republican Conference to serve as the Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.  What does this mean for workforce development and education? 

Kline has indicated that under his leadership the Committee will focus on four major policy goals:

• Giving employers the certainty, flexibility, and freedom to create jobs;


• Conducting robust oversight of education and workforce programs across the federal government to protect students, families, workers, and retirees;


• Modernizing and streamlining training programs to help job-seekers get back to work; and


• Pursuing education reform that restores local control, empowers parents, lets teachers teach, and protects taxpayers.

Job training tops his list and is in keeping with Kline’s past legislative efforts. In 2009, Kline was a co-sponsor of H.R. 4271, the Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2009 (H.R. 4271). The Workforce Investment Improvement Act reauthorizes the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and would, among other things, place adult, dislocated workers and employment service funding streams under a single unified adult and dislocated workers program. Kline’s history of work on WIA could align nicely in the 112^th Congress with efforts in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to produce a compromise bill on WIA reauthorization.  CompTIA will monitor these developments.

On education, Kline has been critical of the Administration’s “Race to the Top” program, the development of Common Core Curriculum state standards, and he has been lukewarm toward the No Child Left Behind law and, in his view, its impingement on local control of education matters. To see more on his views on education, check out the interview conducted by the Washington Post.